@Danu Oh yes, but it seems that most everyone has to learn this lesson the hard way. Who was it who cracked the line about being able to fit a [large animal, maybe an elephant?] with five parameters?
Ah ... found it. John von Neumann. As quoted here.
The line was "With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.".
5 hours later…
user54412
6:56 AM
I just poked around the hot network questions and saw so many incorrect answers and so much bad advice being upvoted and accepted.
user54412
Why are there so many wrong people on the internet?!
I have a question about the force exerted by an electromagnet (solenoid).
Basically, where do I get g from in F=(NI)^2 * mu_0 * A / 2g^2?
I know it is the distance between the electromagnet, but is it the shortest distance possible between the coils and the iron? Is it the farthest possible distance? Or is it the average distance away (middle of the iron)?
what is latest measurement of dark matter density in the universe? does the density stays constant in all places of the universe? is it possible for a dark matter to have this density: $\sim 10^{-9}$ $\frac{eV}{c^2}\frac{1}{m^3}$ (which is same as $\sim 10^{-43}$ $kg/m^3$) ? thanks
In wiki the Vacuum Energy in a cubic meter of free space ranges from $10^{-9}$ from the cosmological constant to $10^{113}$ due to calculations in Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) and Stochastic Electrodynamics (SED).
I've looked at Baez and references given on the wiki page but none of them give a...
It seems that many users find the homework tag "demeaning", e.g. here. There have been many other instances of this, which has also lead to various posts being locked. The users refute that "This is not homework!!!", often, too.
I suggest that we rename it (for example, as probl...
@Kyle Of course! But the way Gigi described it made it clear (in my mind) that it was about dark energy, so I completely missed that it actually reads matter
(I don't think anybody thinks the dark matter density is constant, right?)
I don't feel strongly either way
re the homework issue
although tpg's suggestion to make homework a synonym seems good
@Danu you can talk about the mean DM density just like you can talk about the mean (and supposed constant) DE density, it's really just fixed by the matter density from e.g. CMB measurements, with the baryon fraction subtracted off
@Kyle yeah we'll reconsider that. Bring it up at the next chat session maybe? I'm not sure why we never made that change, but I think at the time it wasn't so clear that the community supported it.
Of course, personally I would rather do away with the homework tag (or any synonym) entirely and just turn what is now our homework policy into a general policy for all questions (i.e. that they should be conceptual).
@DavidZ the chat sessions land at a time that's often awkward for me to show up, but hopefully someone can remember to bring it up. I agree that it would be nice to get rid of [homework] (and all meta-tags), but seeing as that change is evidently a slow process, this might be a good transition step to keep things moving along.
@Kyle Seeing as the tag is the second most used at the moment, it is very difficult to get rid of - or even deprecate - it. Also, it is useful for filtering these kind of questions - whether tagger with homework, homework-like or whatever - out of ones stream (or into it, if one likes them).
@Kyle Right, but I thought the DM density wasn't (thought to be) equal everywhere - so the OP implying that the density may well be constant made me immediately consider DE rather than DM
It seems that many users find the homework tag "demeaning", e.g. here. There have been many other instances of this, which has also lead to various posts being locked. The users refute that "This is not homework!!!", often, too.
I suggest that we rename it (for example, as probl...
